NUSA DUA, Indonesia -- Canada will try to stop the international community from recognizing the “unequivocal scientific evidence” that developed countries must drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to prevent “the worst impacts of climate change,” Environment Minister John Baird said Tuesday.

The warning was drafted into a pair of declarations under negotiation at the annual United Nations climate change summit that concludes Friday on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. But Mr. Baird said the language is unacceptable since it calls for the industrialized countries to collectively reduce their emissions of heat-trapping gases by 25% to 40% below 1990 levels.

He explained Canada only would consider the proposal if it included the notion that developing countries also would have a role to play in the fight against global warming.

“If everyone takes real responsibility to work on [reducing] this pollution, we’ll see,” Baird said at a news conference. “But if there’s a decision by 150 countries to impose obligations on another 36 countries, it won’t work [well] for the environment.”

Mr. Baird said he didn’t come to Bali for “formal negotiations,” rather “to launch negotiations.” He added he supported the objectives of the UN’s top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, who has called for countries to establish the building blocks for a new climate change treaty and a roadmap to get it signed and approved by 2009.

Apart from Canada, the U.S., Japan and Australia also appeared to be uncomfortable with the statement in the negotiations. But Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who arrived at the conference on Tuesday, said he would be meeting with a number of countries to convince them to approve the calls for tougher binding targets.

“When one country sees others moving in the right direction, it might also change so as not to appear to be disagreeing too much with the rest of the world,” said Mr. Dion, who met with de Boer on Tuesday night. “If we don’t have [the 25% to 40% objective] it becomes something that is a lot more vague, and we cannot allow ourselves to be vague when we are facing the worst ecological threat of our time.”

European leaders also said they hoped Canada would become a positive influence in the negotiations, but European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas questioned whether Mr. Baird’s domestic plan in Canada to postpone meeting the country’s Kyoto target by about 20 years would be acceptable.

“I [am getting] mixed signals from Canada, [because] they say: ‘Yes, we’re going to respect our Kyoto obligations and commitments but not now, but in 2020,” said Mr. Dimas at a news conference earlier in the day. “I don’t know whether this is respecting the obligation or not.”

Mr. Dimas added governments need to start paying more attention to the concerns of their citizens with regard to climate change.

The criticism of Canada has escalated at the conference from all sources, including de Boer, and the head of the Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, who said the country was being run by “a government of skeptics.”

Meantime, the Chinese government is being praised by environmentalists, and even by Baird, who said he recognized a change in tone because of a new negotiating stance that demonstrated China’s willingness to take on some commitments. Environmentalists said Canada is being left behind while other countries are stretching their targets to do more.

“They’re of the view that fighting climate change can be good for business, and they’ve done it,” said Steven Guilbeault from Equiterre. “We’re still in this mind frame that fighting global warming is bad for business. But we haven’t done anything about it.”

Mr. Baird ended his day by skipping his own speech scheduled at a side event of the conference with a large crowd of environmentalists and the Canadian Youth Delegation at Bali in attendance. A government spokesperson said Mr. Baird left because he needed to meet with Canadian negotiators.

French officials said talks between rich and poor countries on issues such as adaptation, a technology fund, and incentives for conserving forests went late into the night.

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